YX-007
Ibex; the sparkly clean centers of the racegrounds. Even though the racing these days have been more illegal than not, it was still a generally decent place to set up shop and live in. Not to mention pretty darn neat. And although no one would ever say it aloud, that thanks goes to the YX model of cleaning bots! It's exhaustive work. Cleaning up after what events happen, then cleaning up after the inevitable drunken louts that came out in the dozens after said events, then cleaning up after the USUAL drunken louts that WEREN'T event related. Also, litter. Evil, evil litterbugs. Right now, though, it was an off hour; not too many out and about. Except for the YX bots. ...Who appear to be sneaking? No, that's not quite right; why would YX bots need to sneak? After all, they're heading to the DUMPSTERS, where they belong, really... Yes, there are many drunken louts here that need to be cleaned up after, especially after the races both legal and illegal. Sports are a major source of entertainment on Cybertron, and thus the races are a huge shanix pot. Most of the mechs who come here for the races are the riche upper-caste types who have the money to spend on such lavish occasions, as well as bets on the winners and losers. And admist it all is the Ibexian Athletics Association. They're like the Senate of the sports world. They make the rules of the games, and decide who gets to compete, who gets to watch, and who gets sidelined. Their main office complex towers above most of the buildings in the city, as if to let the rest of the world know that they are the source of it all. The dumpsters in question? Right behind the IAA. A solid half hour is spent digging through said dumpsters; anyone passing by the allyway behind the IAA building don't even bat an eye. People do weird things around here sometimes, and dumpster diving is hardly novel. The door next to the dumpsters, though, is a whole other story. After some digging, they wait for the door to open. It doesn't take long. Some employee needing to get out of the stuffy office eventually opens it up; while his back is turned, the six little disposables slip on in. YX units are easy to ignore, after all. Once inside, they stop the sneaking. They just... Walk along. ... And sweep along the way, actually. It's soon slightly less dusty. The door opens onto a stairwell leading up to a hallway lined with offices and conference rooms. There are a few IAA personnel milling about, but no one really pays them any attention. Not that the YX bots are particularly stealthy, but no one really notices them. They're the disposable cleaning types who everyone always assumes are just drones. The hallway continues several doors down before it intersects with a larger main corridor that runs the length of this particular sector of the facility. Honestly, the six of them have no idea where they're going. It's not like they have a map. So, as they walk along the halls, pretending like they belong there -- and, cleaning as they move and inspired by one too many spy movies watched in snippets late at night between shifts -- it barely feels difficult. The further along they go, the braver they get. Still, it's not as if they came here with a map. They linger by cubicles. They even empty some garbage bins in to a larger bucket in the hall. At the intersection, they go... At random. With a shrug. Just keep going. They find themselves heading down a more barren and less inviting hallway, at the end of which is a large door with a security panel on it. The doors suddenly open, and a technician rushes out with a somewhat frantic expression on his face. "Slag it!" he grumbles, and upon setting optics on the YX bots, he fixes them with a pointed glare. "Ugh, get in here and clean up that mess in section five." He motions urgently toward the corridor beyond. Well, okay, that's an ORDER, isn't it? Now they actually DO belong there! Uhm, yaaay? The six of them don't even bother getting the technician's name, but they rush down the hall and hope that there's some sign or something that points where Section Five is. Oh, let there be numbers, let there be numbers... Well, there are, thankfully. It's somewhat confusing, but the technician doesn't really follow up on the order. He looks awfully busy, because he just rushes off somewhere else once they come through. The area they find themselves in is definitely a lot less inviting than the office area. They probably don't invite visitors back here to tour or anything. But anyway, Section 5 just happens to be the designated 'operation' area, where quite a bit of spark extraction is going on at the moment. In fact, right now there seems to be some commotion going down. Shouting can be heard, as well as noise of a struggle... Well, that probably wasn't good. The six little cleaning bots share a look. One of them shakes his head, optics wide; a second one is nodding with a VERY FIRM look on his face. Yes, they were going on, no backing out now. So, led by The Firm One, they head towards the noise. One of them points to a closet marked with a 'cleaning supplies' symbol. Hey, might as well, they didn't know WHAT they were going in to, so... They arm themselves with extra brooms and cleaning solution. What they bear witness to next might not be something that they have ever seen before. A battered-looking mech, probably an empty, is whimpering and struggling against three technicians, who are trying to force him down and pin him to a circuit slab. He knocks one of them in the head, managing to break free and run a short distance; however one of the other techs fires some kind of barbed magnet on the end of a cable at him that catches him on the lower leg. It begins to retract, effectively reeling him in like a fish on a line. He desperately grasps for purchase on the floor but finds none, and is finally shoved down onto the slab where metal clamps lock him in place. The six cleaning bots, as if of one mind, simply stare. Optics wide, limbs slack and generally shocked. After a few seconds, a 'squeak' goes off; one of the cleaning bots looks at his feet. There's liquid on the floor. It doesn't look like anything healthy. Hesitantly, he nudges the rest of his friends. They look down as well. The shock is still firm, but they slowly get to cleaning. Though, the brooms are abandoned and left leaning against a wall in a neat row; this is MOP work. The victim of this entire ordeal is now sobbing and begging, but no one pays it any mind. One technician administers some form of anesthetic, then begins to cut his chassis open, pulling the armor back until the spark chamber is visible. Then, a long rod with a pointy-looking claw at the end is inserted into the chamber, and the subject cries out in pain as his spark begins it be pulled out of his body. Meanwhile, the squeak draws one of the other staff's attention. He glances at the YX bots, and is about to move on, but then looks back at them again. "Hey wait a breem, you're not drones!" The mech leans over to search for their badges, but finds none! The 'you're not drones' is met with more confusion than alarm; well, of course not, YX bots were never drones. None of them ever were. Where did that mindset even COME from? "Uhm, uhm..." One of the YX bots meekly whispers; he might not really be audible above the screaming. "Someone... Tall guy, blue, green face? Had a badge and told us to come clean here." The technician from earlier. "It was an order." And YX bots are very good at following orders, yes, yes they are. The shrieking continues until the procedure is over, and the empty's body simply slumps back, now dark and lifeless. The spark is placed into a holding chamber and carted off to a sample storage vault. The body is also dragged away to storage, but likely elsewhere. The tech questioning the cleaners doesn't look convinced. Maybe he's a real suspicious type like Red Alert. "You're lying." he accuses, his optics narrowing. It isn't often that a YX bot is accused of lying; mostly because they very rarely do it. Granted, Group Five were a bit wilder than most -- you had to be, to work in Ibex. Still, the cleaning bots just sort of... Blink dumbly. They had no reference points for this; lying? What? The dumb look shifts to confusion. "I don't understand." He really didn't! "Don't play stupid with me!" The tech insists. "You're not supposed to be in here! Why were you even in this -building- to begin with? We don't hire -disposables- to clean, we only use drones!" The other five YX bots have the sense to start backing away. The one in the lead, not so much. He's starting to look nervous, but also still confused. "We were told to clean here. Tall guy, green face, kind of had these flare things like a turborat?" Still that technician from before. "You're not answering my question. I asked you why were you in the -building- in the first place. I know who that is, he hasn't been outside all cycle." the mech folds his arms. "Now tell me the -truth-." He demands. "He came out to the hall and told us to come in." The same YX looks so bewildered! Innocently bewildered! "We came in to clean because he told us to. We were cleaning in the halls first." It is a common misconception that YX units weren't very smart; almost drone like, really. So much so, many confused them for drones. "Were we doing something wrong, sir?" "Exactly so why were you -in- that hallway to begin with? You're not even supposed to be in this -building-, do you understand?" He says harshly. Should the one very angry technician look up, he might notice that where there were once six little cleaning bots, now there were only five. One of them has gone off in search of a DIFFERENT technician to, of all things, complain that someone is stopping them from doing their jobs. The one still being grilled frowns. "We were told to come here." The tech groans. "You were told to come into this -section- of the building, but who told you to come into this -building- in the first place?" He continues to grill the poor little disposable. But then he gives up. "Ugh, you lot are a bunch of glitches. Just get out of here already!" "B-But we have to clean here..." That one YX looks so distressed now! "What do we tell our bosses?" "Get. Out." The tech demands, and now he's pointing a sidearm at the insistent cleaner. "All of you, -now-." The other cleaner will actually have a difficult time finding another tech who is not busy; everyone is just so preoccupied! There's a lot of work going on in this particular area. However, if he followed the mechs who had carted that spark off, he might catch sight of a room filled with rectangular casings inside of which are even more extracted sparks, each one marked with a number and name. One of them is definitely Turntable. Hey, wasn't that the bot that they were looking for? Turntable? The one YX unit notices it and boggles for just a moment; oh, at least they could bring back SOME news. Good. Right? This was good? The one YX doesn't stop, though. He tries very hard to get the attention of SOMEONE. ANYONE. "Uhm, excuse me?" YX bots aren't very good at getting attention, though. But look! The other five! Sulking about and actually heading in the same direction. Look at a pile of disgruntled disposables. Lookk! Yes, it would appear that Turntable's spark is in fact alive and still burning bright. At least it's -someone- named Turntable. The label has a series of numbers after the name, but that's probably just for inventory purposes. The angry technician who had been insisting they leave finally seems to give up and stalk off--he has much better things to do than deal with a bunch of disposables. So for the time being, they're left to continue trying to get someone else's attention, though that effort appears to be in vain for the time being. Noticing that, for the moment, they're left to their own devices, the cleaning bots try to blend back in. They still had their mops and the floor COULD use a good cleaning. Two of them move in to the lab itself, just... Cleaning. Look at all the messy puddles. See how helpful they're being? So helpful. The other four know better than to crowd in to one area all together and mingle nearby. Mingling with dirt, mind you, but nonetheless. Ah, but now that they've been -noticed-, blending in like that isn't going to work any more. -Someone- was watching that entire little confrontation through the surveillance system, and thus, it's not long before Blurr shows up in the lab where the two bots are cleaning. It's likely they know who he is, whether it's through the media or through the other cleaners... Oh, they know. They know very very much. Two of them almost faint at the sight of him. Not from fear, mind you; by the looks in their optics, they're REALLY BIG FANS. They're awestruck. Look at those faces. They're happy just to SEE him. Blurr grins widely at them, intending to take full advantage of this. "Hey guys." He greets with a wave. "Huh, I thought I saw more of you around here, any idea where the rest of your team got off to? I've got a special uhm...-job- for you all." "...Rest, sir?" One of the awestruck YX units blinks. "It's just us, sir. The order came in for a small group. Six is our smallest." "Job, sir?" Another YX unit blinks; he seems a bit more uneasy about it. "We're very confused, sir. One person told us to clean here, another told us to get out, and now we're not really sure what to do or why we're here." They really are quite convincing. "Right, six but there are only two of you in here. So where are the others?" Blurr asks. He laughs a little. "Okay, okay, I just thought you guys might want to get an image capture with me. Besides, lately I've been trying to show the world that I don't just care about rich people like myself, and that I make time to spend with bots like you, you know?" "Bots like... Us?" Oh, now they're EXTRA bewildered; something doesn't seem to add up here. "Sir, if I may say, not mamany actually consider us to be... People." They know where they are in society. "We're big fans, sir, we truly are, but we're not worth what real people might say." They actually ARE fans. CONCERNED FANS. "Yes!" Blurr assures them, nodding. "I know that, but that's exactly -why- I want to do this. Because you -are- people, and I want people to -see- that." Now just tell me where they are... The two very legitimate fans -- YX bots, but fans, really! -- look even more uneasy now. It doesn't seem to be for any sort of self-preservation; the second one is clutching a -- ...What is that? A scarf? A... It looks like one of those disposable napkins to clean up energon with. It looks like it has Blurr's racing logo on it. Oh, goodness. "They're out in the hall, sir. Cleaning out the doors. It's very dirty out there, sir."" The two very legitimate fans -- YX bots, but fans, really! -- look even more uneasy now. It doesn't seem to be for any sort of self-preservation; the second one is clutching a -- ...What is that? A scarf? A... It looks like one of those disposable napkins to clean up energon with. It looks like it has Blurr's racing logo on it. Oh, goodness. "Great! Let's get them in here so we can get together for the picture then!" Blurr darts to the doorway. "Hey guys! Yeah, you!" He is looking right at the other four. "Get together with your buddies, I want to get a capture with you." The other four disposables look like deer in headlights. It's a mix of starstruck and 'oh god someone is yelling at us'. Hesitantly, the lot of them make their way towards Blurr. They seem nervous. "C'mon, c'mon!" Blurr urges as he cheerfully herds them together. "Let's get together and pose, I want this to look like we're best buds, okay? Even though we just met so we aren't -yet-." He just looks so friendly and happy, what a nice guy! It seems these bots' fan-worship of him wasn't misplaced, RIGHT? The poor, doomed six disposables don't really know any better. Even working in Ibex and all it's nastiness hasn't quite jaded them away from Blurr's false sincerity. They crowd in, of course, one of them even holding the napkin. They aren't ALL happiness and glee, though; there's a sense of unease. This wasn't quite right. Ah, these poor, hapless little disposables. Even though they are not really jaded, perhaps they are not -completely- ignorant either, since some of them seem to realize that something isn't right here. Maybe it's that this seems too good to be true. Why would someone as famous as Blurr suddenly come up to these nobodies and act like he wants to befriend them just for the sake of befriending someone different? Such things do not happen in a society like this one, do they? Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but in this particular case, they don't. Because this time, there were ulterior motives. As soon as they are huddled up together, arm-mounted blasters abruptly emerge from under his plating and are pressed up against the back of Mr. Firm One's head. Only this time, there is no threat or demand or hesitation of any kind; only a loud report as the weapon discharges. Now the rest of them have about three astroseconds to run for their lives, or hide, which is likely the better option in this case. There are no screams. There are no cries for alarms or yelps or calls to action or any of that. There are only five little disposables, running for their lives. They don't quite bottleneck at the door; somehow, they manage to not get in each others' way. It's almost impressive; one dives beneath another one, as if he KNEW to do it, and another JUMPS over... Three get out in the space of one person, really. Once out, they scatter. Five different directions. Blurr curses as the disposables seem rather apt at escaping and don't end up tripping over each other, despite appearances that might imply otherwise. He dashes after them, though unfortunately he can't follow the exact route they took since they are a lot smaller than he is. Once outside he pauses to search for any sign of them. There's a LOT of people working in here. A couple of them just stare at the fleeing disposables; it's not often that they run in a public space, after all. Still, five different directions. Five very small bots. Hmph...it seems Blurr will have to track them down later, or tell someone else to. He may be fast, but he can't be in more than one place at once. He stops and turns back...it seems the little cleaner bots were safe...for now.